Foggy Stop

In the beginning, before any beginning, even before first dawn, there was nothingness. No, not even a word. Simply nothing at all. The absolute absence of everything. The absence of any existence and of any being. The unimaginable, the unspeakable.

"Death you mean," I add spontaneously.

No, not even that. Death is the dissolution, the end or transformation of something that is. Of something particular. Therefore death, too, is something particular.

„The void?“ I assume on a hunch, moving my cold toes in my boots.

Sounds better. But still the void signifies the absence of filling the space. The space is the condition of the void. But nothingness has no condition; it is defined by nothing but itself. It is indifferent to beginning and end. It is indifferent to any condition and time by being all and nothing. And not even that.

„Well, then, it is the word which means everything and is nothing,“ I let go triumphantly.

„What is more comprehensive, with less determination or condition whatsoever, than the word?“ I am freezing in my thick down-jacket.

Words exchanged
into the heavy fog night
arrives the last bus

Beate Conrad lives in Michigan, USA. Her haiku and haiga have been awarded and appeared in a variety of print and online journals. She created several haiku related artworks combing visual arts and music.